Ils sont fous ces sorciers (1978)
Directed by Georges Lautner

Film Review

Had a little more care been spent on the script Ils sont fous ces sorciers could have been one of Georges Lautner's more enjoyable comedies.  It has the right ingredients - an original madcap plot, an exotic location and some likeable comic actors - but it just fails to take off and, instead, merely languishes in its own puerile silliness.  It would take a comedian of far, far greater standing than Jean Lefebvre to make this comedy misfire amusing.  Like the captain of the Titanic, Lefebvre is unable to do much other than salute quietly as the ship disappears beneath the waves - a fate that befell many a French comedy in the 1970s, the decade that humour forgot.

Film Synopsis

Modest employee Julien Picard is sent by his boss to Mauritius to negotiate an important contract with the inventor of a Creole bouillabaisse.  On the plane from Paris he meets Henri Berger, a professional layabout who has just won a luxury holiday in a competition.  On their first night in Mauritius, both men get drunk and urinate on a sacred totem.  Their act of desecration is swiftly punished and they begin to fall foul of mysterious phenomena which ruin the rest of their stay.  Back in Paris, Julien is unable to throw off his strange affliction but soon finds he can use it to his advantage...